As the cooperation negotiations between Oculus and ZeniMax collapsed in 2012, things began to get out of hand, and ZeniMax has gradually become a danger to Oculus. It is understood that Brandon Irebi, co-founder of Oculus, will appear in court in Dallas, USA today.
Ireby points out that the chairman of Bethesda Softworks once called Oculus’s team “kids†and threatened to ban any then VR with id Software's technical director John Carmack if Oculus did not sign a cooperation agreement. relevant job. (Note: Bethesda Softworks is a subsidiary of ZeniMax)
In the negotiations in November 2012, ZeniMax requested a 15% stake in Oculus.
The $2 billion lawsuit mainly revolved around who developed the technology behind the Oculus Rift VR headline. In today's trial, Oculus defense lawyers are trying to establish the technical capabilities and background of Erubi.
They dig deeper into the early years of Ireby’s interest in games and computers, and how he eventually chose to specialize in electronic engineering. Ireby met Michael Antonov, the chief software architect at Oculus, at the university, and then they dropped out of school and founded their own company.
The company Scaleform, which was founded by the two companies, was later acquired by Autodesk in 2011 for more than $36 million.
According to Oculus's lawyers, the software focus has led to Erbil to recruit extraordinary talents for Oculus, such as Jack McCauley, who has developed the first "Guitar Hero" controller team, and Steve LeValle, a robotics and computer vision expert. And an engineer who developed custom sensor technology for Oculus.
By explaining that Oculus has specialized engineering and programming talent, Oculus' defense attorneys tried to prove that Carmac was only an Oculus consultant. The defense also came up with an e-mail stating that Carmack himself had said that Oculus's code and implementation method is better than his own solution. Through all this, Ireby and Oculus defense lawyers emphasized that the development process of Rift did not involve any code from ZeniMax at all, because the new sensor developed by Oculus was not compatible with any of the products Kammar shared under the confidentiality agreement in 2012. thing.
The defense also tried to use emails between Irebi and Todd Hollenshead, the chairman of id Software at the time, and Tim Willits, creative director of the current id Software, to further explain that no one in ZeniMax had objected to Oculus using Fury or Doom Warrior 3 BFG Edition (Note: John Carmack, then Technical Director at id Software, demonstrated a modified version of Doom 3:BFG in 2012 with a VR headlamp prototype. Oculus then used these games as test). Oculus defense attorneys also emphasized that all this was shared in the second half of 2012 with the complete media presentation schedule of Erubi, and what happened after Willits personally experienced the device.
The volume of these messages peaked in September 2012, when Ereby proposed to Hollenshead to provide a 2% stake in exchange for Carmac as technical adviser to Oculus, and to provide additional investor equity in the seed round or A round of financing.
But ZeniMax dismissed the proposal at the time and instead offered to exchange 15% of Oculus's irreducible equity. Ereli pointed out that this was unheard of.
As a result, Vratko Andonov, the chairman of Ireby, Antonov and Bethesda Softworks, met in Bethesda (Ereby said that Vlatko Andonov is known for his "rich and varied" personality). However, they did not reach a unanimous agreement. Ireby pointed out that Vlatko Andonov was very aggressive at that time and once told the three founders of Oculus that "You guys are just kids, you should be working with us" (you guys are just kiddies, you guys should follow us). Irebi continues to confess that if Oculus does not sign the agreement, "they will not let the person in charge of (Karmak) participate in VR-related work."
In cross-examination, the lawyer of ZeniMax made it clear that the company believes that 15% of the equity will be used by Kamak to contribute to Rift. ZeniMax believes that Carmak made a very crucial contribution to Rift, including technical assistance, and head and neck modeling.
ZeniMax's lawyers then talked in depth about the "id 5 people group" at the time. The five employees who worked at id Software later joined Oculus. In the courtroom, they sent an e-mail from Camarc, which listed the employees of id Software at the time and explained that if these employees leave, Carmac would “not be surprisedâ€.
Then they also sent a series of other emails to the court, including the communication between Oculus's co-founder Nate Mitchell and Irebi. ZeniMax's lawyers pointed out that they had contacted employees who were still working for id Software, which led to the then The group of id 5 people left to join Oculus. However, Irebi refuted the lawyer's interpretation of the contact. He pointed out that this was only an ordinary visit, and that because these employees told Irebi that after Zeni Max took over id Software, they worked very unhappy and then met. It became a job interview. (Note: id Software was acquired by ZeniMax in 2009)
The plaintiff came up with a record of WhatsApp communications between Erbil and Zuckerberg before Zuckerberg appeared in court. Ireby’s information shows “We need to sync before your depo†(we need to talk about your mouth before you testify). ZeniMax thinks this is evidence that they both tried to collude.
ZeniMax quoted a white paper by Oculus before closing the interview, including the following acknowledgment chapters:
"We want to thank John Carmack, the founder of heaven and earth (and of course Doom)."
ZeniMax's team believes that this is a fairly clear statement that Oculus believes that the contribution of Carmac is a key element of Rift's success.
Today's lawsuit is still going on. YiVian will continue to update this story. This U.S. federal trial is expected to last for two weeks.
Yesterday’s trial was more about Palmus Ludge, another founder of Oculus. This is his first public appearance since the Trump incident in September last year. (Note: Raki funded an unofficial team supporting Donald Trump at the time. The team was known for his mocking of Hillary Clinton. Note: American technology circles, including Silicon Valley, generally dislike Trump.)
Yesterday’s news revolved around the lack of the help of Carmac, and Rach’s ability to develop the Oculus Rift on his own.
On Tuesday, Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg disclosed more information about Facebook's acquisition of Oculus. Last week, ZeniMax challenged Carmac's decision to copy part of the code from id Software before leaving id Software and working with Rach.
ZeniMax, based in Rockville, Maryland, sued Oculus in May 2014, claiming that the VR startup had stolen their trade secrets to develop the Oculus Rift headline. Before the lawsuit was launched, ZeniMax also publicly accused Carmac of providing technical support to Oculus. Oculus responded that it would refute these claims.
According to ZeniMax's lawsuit, Oculus co-founder and Rift inventor Palmer Ritchie, and six former ZeniMax employees, a million-dollar-worth asset based on the research and development code that ZeniMax conducted years ago. Do your own development.
Oculus, which has been acquired by Facebook, has denied all these allegations and stated that the lawsuit was caused because Facebook acquired the company and ZeniMax treated it as a "money opportunity."
The relationships between Lachs, Oculus Rift, Carmack, and ZeniMax's id Software are complex. You can read more articles by YiVian to learn more about this incident.
Ptfe Sheet Cutting,Factory Ptfe Seal ,Customized Ptfe Oil Seal,Ptfe Oil Seal
Cixi Congfeng Fluorine Plastic Co.,Ltd , https://www.cfptfeseal.com